The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1911, AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1129, 17 May 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1911, AN IMPORTANT JUDGMENT.

Ths decision of the United States Supreme Court that the Standard Oil Company is a combination in restraint of trade is one of the most important judgments that has ever been delivered in America, and is a tremendous triumph for the Sherman Law and for Mr. Taft and his Attorney-General, Mr. Wickershaji. It is five: yeai'i since the suit to dis: solve the organisation was begun, and an enormous literature has grown up around the company and its methods—thousands of newspaper and magazine articles, and not a lew books. Most people must have read something of the history of this powerful organisation and the rise of Mr. .Rockefeller from his beginning as a small oil-refiner and merchant to the control of the wealthiest and most powerful corporation in the world. There is practically no device of shady commercialism--fronr illegal rebates to the bribery of Governments and Judges—that has not been used by the powers behind the company; and up till a little aver a year ago hardly anyone expected that the lair would ever succeed in checking its operations. The suit, as we have said, was instituted in November, 1906, in the Eastern Missouri Circuit Court, and was directed against 114 corporations—the Standard Oil Company and 113 subordinate companies—and seven individuals, these being Johx D. and William ' Hockliteller, Flagler, Henry JJogerSj Arciicold, Oliver Pavne, and Charles Pr.vit. ' The company's skill in securing delays on technical points of law .and procedure delay, jd the Court's decision until well on.in 1907, when the four Judges granted the suit for dissolution on the ground that the Trust was an illegal combination in , restraint of interstate commerce, and w-as also monopolising the oil trade. This did not end the matter, and the case came before the Circuit Court at St. Louis in 1909. In November of that year the earlier judgment was reaffirmed. Appeal was then made to the Supieme Court, and the case was argued a year ago, but the death of two of the Judges and the retirement of a third necessitated a furiher delay. The case was finally heard last January, and now the decision is given from which there cvin be no appeal. ' The decision derives its importance from the fact that every preparation had been made to procure from the Court a final settlement of the largo general questions involved, ar, What is trade and commerce 1 What is restraint of trade'! and, What is monopoly? Mr. Roosevelt, while he supplied the main driving force in the anti-trust movement, did almost as much harm as good by insisting on a difference between "good" and "bad" trusts, or, in effect, by considering .immediate results instead of methods and results not immediate. Nor did hedo anything to disc's the despairing tendency of the public to believe that the Courts # cotikl not settle the general issues involved—issues that were probably novc expressly formulated for himself by the ;,uthpr of the law. Mr. Taft and Mr. Wickersuaji, howevor, came by their study to another view. In a message to Congress in January of last ycar,_ the President declared that the thing to do with the Sherman Act was to let it alone. He was faced with two conflicting demands: the first, that the law should be softened in order to protect harmless and useful combinations .of capital, and the second, that it should be mado more rigorous in order to check the more subtle of the scoundrelly corporations. He was convinced, however, that under the decisions of the Federal Courts, increasingly clear principles had been and wcrv being established which mado it possible to strike down monopolies and hurtful combinations, while holding that innocent agreements, made in the orderly development of business for the purpose 'of securing economies of production and management, arc not obnoxious to the law. lie will now be able to point to the Supreme Court decision as the best possible endorsement of his view of the Act.

_ It is impossible, to say what practical steps will follow the decision.. According to the New York corres-' pondent of the London Times, writing last January, the issue of the case was not causing much anxiety because the decisions would not be confiscatory, and, if unfavourable to the interests involved, would not prevent the carrying-on. of business, or require, more than a change in the form of organisation. A prominent banker wa-s quoted as paying: "The worst that could happen would be the temporary inconvenience of reorganisation, which in all probability nas been'thoroughly anticipated by the concerns likely to be affected." There are many people who, while sensible of the evils that can result from trusts and monopolies, yet feel that some lines of activity run by nature into monopoly, and are best left so to run. But this is to confuse more natural monopoly with monopoly achieved by unfair means, by means, that is to say, which can be shown to rest on a basis of conspiracy. The best answer to this objection that we have read has been thus stated; ''Such interference ;\s takes tho shape of simply giving competition ;i fair chance will not prevent the monopolising of an industry to any extent tc which the truly natural conditions make monopoly advantageous. The very test of whether an industry is marked out by nature for monopoly or not is avoided if we permit the nascent monopoly to enjoy, over and above the advantages, inherent in the case, those other advantages which reside in unfai l ' practices.'*' The lesson for Australasia in the judgment is that unfair or illegal methods of business contributing to a monopoly can bo checked by a simple Shaman Act working upon no git.•iter mass of principles than is piovided by British Ir-w. There is no necessity for the wild short outs that Australasian experimenters love. And only those trade combinations should be checked which, without any regard to results, depend for their existence upon unfair and illegal methods leading to i monoooly...